Motheaten Poem
- Motheaten Poem
Beware of greatness, my soul.
—Cavafy
As the burnt catalpa tree, or as the gossamer which trailsbehind, unraveling: moths in their hungerflutter Swaddled in netting, we sleepoutside together What stirsand quiets like a moth quiveringon a sleeve, call it desire What concedesto something wild, unjust, rebuke The catalpa groansall month Moths alight with mouthsof thread In the finger’s breadthbetween us, dusk where cloth had beenWhere cloth was, dusk [End Page 47]
Richie Hofmann
Richie Hofmann is the recipient of a 2012 Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. His poems appear in Ploughshares, Poetry, the New Republic, and the New Yorker, among others. He is pursuing his MFA in the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars.
